Ptraci

Queen Ptraci
Name	Ptraci
Race	Human
Age
Occupation	Former handmaiden, now Queen of Djelibeybi
Physical appearance
Residence	Djelibeybi
Death
Parents	Father Pteppicymon XXVII
Relatives	Half-brother Teppic
Children
Marital Status
Appearances
Books	Pyramids
Cameos

Ptraci was one of the handmaidens of King Pteppicymon XXVII of Djelibeybi. When he died (after unfortunately believing he was a seagull and attempting to emulate their flights) she refused to "voluntarily" take the poison that would allow her to become his handmaiden after death too, so Dios ordered her put to death.

The new king Pteppicymon XXVIII - better known as Pteppic (who had trained at the Assassins' Guild in Ankh-Morpork) rescued her and fled Djelibeybi to Ephebe, following a trans-dimensional disaster that wiped the entire valley of the Djel from time and space and encapsulated it in its own dimension. Using the greatest mathematician on the Disc (a camel named You Bastard), they managed to return to Djelibeybi and restore it to reality. On the journey they discover their relative lives have been pretty much a no-score-draw: the trained assassin has inhumed a total number of people somewhere between nought and ten, while the trained handmaiden has congressed a total number of people somewhere between nought and ten. Teppic realises she is just as much a misfit in her profession as he is, and the relationship warms.

Following a realisation that they shared an ancestral dream featuring cows and trombones (or possibly wimblehorns), it turned out that Ptraci was Pteppic's half-sister; and was his successor when he abdicated. As a former handmaiden (Grade 3), the Djelibeybian priests thought she would be easy to control. They turned out to be very wrong. Like her half-brother she is keen to get in some decent plumbing. It appears that the children of the Djel are about to be dragged into the new century whether they - or their priests - like it or not.

Annotation

Roundworld link: in England, "Tracy" is a name often used in jest to mean a thick and/or slutty girl, particularly when used in combination with "Sharon". The phrase "Sharon and Tracy" has long had pejorative connotations when aimed at a pair of girls out in the evening with enough dress between them for one. One of the hideous "Fat Slags" in long-running adult comic Viz is called Tracy. (Her friend is a Sandra). In the long-running British TV Sitcom "Birds of a Feather" a pair of "Essex girl" sisters, Tracey Stubbs (played by Linda Robson) Sharon Theodopolopodous (played by Pauline Quirke) are the leading characters.